Sunday, 10 October 2010

The Battle of the Fuldrak Pass

Before I start - yeah I know I had an illegal list - but I didn't realise until I was waiting for the bus home.

Anywho...

Da Green Tigerz went into battle today with Ultrama's finest.

The Space Marines being led by none other than Marneus Calgar, which in part explains why I had an illegal list - since I decided to match Marneus with Wazdakka, and because I was running him as a solo fire magnet, I swapped out the Nob Bikerz I had originally pencilled into the list, for 5 Nobs, and since I didn't have a warboss this gave me 4 elites. I'm not sure how much this affected things.

The deployment was pitched battle and the mission was annihilation.

I deployed first and and basically set up all my army in a long line with the Dreds and Kanz to the front, one unit of Lootas on a hill in the centre and the other unit of Lootas in ruins on my right. The Deffkoptas were deployed 2 on the right flank and 1 on the left, and beside the Kopta on the left I deployed Wazdakka. The Mek sat in his Trukk in the centre giving KFF cover for the Dreds and Kanz, and as much of the Boyz as possible.

The Marines deployed a tactical squad on their left, a heavy weapon team beside them in the ruins, then there was a slight gap to Marneus and his termintors who were hiding behind a small copse. And on the right flank was a scout squad behind ruined area terrain, supported by Dreadnought. And there was a Pedator and two Razorbacks offering fire support.

The Marines tried to steal the initiative, but failed and so the Orks began to rumble forward. Well all except Wazdakka and the Koptas, who shot down the flanks and set themselves up to take out the armoured support.

When the firing started the Kopta's took out the Pedator and one of the Razorbacks, Wazdakka stunned the other Razorback and the final Kopta stunned the Dreadnought - so it couldn't shoot. The Kanz unit with the rokkits and the KMB killed two terminators with Marneus Calgar. And the Lootas managed to kill another.

Which made me wonder if I was playing Orkz at all.

In the Marine turn, they didn't move instead relying on shooting. Marneus called down an orbital bombardment but it scattered towards the back of the phalanx, failed to hit with any real strength and the KFF protected the Boyz who were affected. The Tactical squad unleashed at Wazdakka but a mixture of poor luck and exhaust fumes meant that they failed to kill him. Then the heavy weapons squad opened up on him and while they manged to kill him, Wazdakka had done what he was meant to by drawing off the fire from the rampaging orks charging across the field.

Marneus and his Terminators opened up on the Deff Dred, and managed to take off the Big Shoota. The scouts on the left shot at the koptas but missed. Thought the Dreadnought managed to charge 1 of them and bring it down.

Turn two opened with the Koptas flying around the Tactical squad and setting themselves up for a rear shot on the remaining Razorback, whilst on the opposite flank the other Kopta moved to take shots at the rear off the Dreadnought. The rest of the army surged forward.

What is it about the run move, that I either roll a 6 or a 1? And in this game I was rolling rather a lot of 6's meaning that the boyz were moving at a hell of a lick.

The shooting phase saw the end of the Razorback, and the Dreadnought stunned and shaken. The Gotzookas engaged the heavy weapons squad and killed one maybe two men, but basically demonstrated the randomness of Ork shooting, with the shots scattering all over the place. The Lootas did nothing. And the rokkit Kanz opened up against the Dreadnought and did precisely sweet Fanny Adams. In the run phase the Deff Dread made towards Calgar and his Termies and the Boyz closed in on the heavy weapons squad. At which point I probably should have called a Waargh but forgot and ended up with nothing in a position to assualt.

As it turned out this wasn't a bad thing, because the Kopta that had flown behind the tactical squad had put the wind up the Marines to such an extent that the Tactical Squad and the heavy weapons teams fired everthing they had at the Kopta. And missed.

Oh and The Imperial maps had clearly not been updated as the reserves failed to show up.

Calgar assualted the Deff Dred with his termies, Calgar lost a wound, the Dred lost a CCA but the combat was a stalemate, and it was opening of a combat that was ultimately to decide the course of the battle.

Having missing the Waargh last turn, I was determined to launch it this time. And actually it was better, as I was now able to manouvre in order that assualting the Tactical squad was a unit of Kanz and the Nobz, the heavy weapons squad was getting jumped on by a unit of Boyz, another unit of Boyz was piling into support the Dred and the everything else could get closer to the scouts hiding behind the ruined area terrain.

Again the Ork shooting excelled, with the Loota's killing the heavy weapons squad down to one man, who ended up taking out one of the 20 or so Boyz that jumped on him, but the inevitable happened and he drowned under the green tide.

The Nobz and Kanz battled it out with the Tact squad, with the Kanz performing admirably, and the Nobz doing less well - in that they didn't kill everyone - meaning that at the end of the combat a single marine still stood.

The Calgar combat went against the Orks. The Dred lost another CCA, the Boyz and their Nob whiffed their attacks and the boyz fell like flies to the fearless rule.

The reserves again didn't show.

The Dreadnought got it's head together and marched off towards the Burna boyz threatening the scouts. Whose shooting no doubt is as we speak the subject of an inquiry back at GHQ, as yet again they failed to kill anything.

Calgar and his termies continued their fine work against the Boyz and the Dred, ripping the final arm off the Dred and killing the Boyz like it was going out of fashion. The Orks did manage to get a wound on Calgar and kill one of the termies but the fearless rule again took it's toll when the combat was resolved.

Having wiped out the left flank the Orks it was a case of trying to get the troops on that flank redeployed into some sort of useful position.

As the combat with Calgar wasn't going well I decided not to throw more troops into the fight but to position the Boyz in the ruins so that if things went tits up they could at least get a round of shooting in.

The Burnas ran through the ruins to get an assualt the following turn, but the supporting boyz were less keen.

Whilst the Koptaz went after the Drednought.

At which point things began to turn against the Orks. The Koptas hit the Drednought and in both cases, rolled a '1'. And the Boyz fighting Calgar only stayed in the fight because the Nob killed one to keep morale from breaking down.

And then the Marine reserves finally arrived. Assault terminators dropped in behind Marneus to support him. And the landspeeder flew onto the flank of the Burnas. The combination of the two scout units and the Dreadnought wiped them out. While Calgar finally managed to kill the Boyz in the centre, but not the Dred. Though by this positive point, Marneus was down to 1 wound.

So now it was all or nothing for the Orks. The Nobz and the Boyz in the ruins jumped on the assault terminators while they were re-organising from their drop and managed to kill three of them. The lootas took down the Landspeeder and killed two of the scouts. But again the Koptas fired at and hit the Dreadnought, but rolled a 1 for wounds.

The failure to take out the Dreadnought came back to haunt me in the Marine turn. With the Burnas gone the Dreadnought piled into the Boyz unit that until that point was untouched. And as the only thing that harm the Dreadnought was the Nob, and the Nob had a fetish for rolling 1's to the Dreadnought's 6's, the Orks found themselves being punished by the fearless rule and under the cosh.

I continued to redeploy and pick things off with the Lootas.

In the assualt phase the fight to the death in the centre finally saw the Deff Dred blow up, but in a perfect piece of symmetry the Nobz and Boyz killed the assault terminators. The Dreadnought and the Nob on the right duelled it out, whilst the boyz died in droves.

In the marine turn, Marneus and the surviving termie shot the Boyz, who were to busy celebrating killing the assualt terminators to notice that they were being fired on. When they did notice, and also noticed that half their number was also dead they took to their heels and got run down. The scouts finally found their range and started picking of the Lootas in the ruins on the right. Oh and the Dreadnought continued chewing through the boyz, whilst their Nob continued swinging and missing - and by this point he was having to kill Boyz to keep them in the fight.

The Ork turn finally saw Marneus die - fired on by rokkits. KMB, grotzookas and sluggas with no effect, their luck finally ran out when the Big Shoota on the Trukk rattled into life and their battered and bloodied terminator armour malfuntioned. The lootas wiped out the reserve scouts. And as fire was proving unreliable against the dug in scouts and the Dreadnought was pounding the Boyz, I charged the Koptas into the scout unit hideen at the back of the ruined area cover.

The game went the full 7 turns and in the very last Marine turn the Nob finally managed to topple the Dreadnought and the Koptas managed to make the scouts run.

The result was an 11 - 5 victory to the Orks, which was nice, but what was more important was that it was a great game against a very sporting and fun opponent.